A comment by “Bob” on yesterday’s blog post about “what 2011 holds in store for public transport” got me thinking about integrated ticketing. “Bob” noted the following:
I have yet to hear anyone explain why we need a special Integrated Ticket (other than the daftly obvious – seamless transfers; yes, I get that!). We already have an ‘integrated ticket’ – the Discovery Day and Monthly Passes, which let you travel on all buses, trains and ferries (except Hauraki islands and Half Moon Bay). Expensive, but it exists, and I use them. Why can’t ARTA just tweak the conditions to include ten-trips and cash fare tickets being used on any operator? Cut off contracted service funding to any operator who won’t play ball…
As my reply to his comment stated, there are two clearly distinct parts to the integrated ticketing project that ARTA initiated, and now Auckland Transport are continuing. They are:
- Integrating the ticketing/fares. This means that tickets sold by any operator will be accepted by any other operator. At the moment there is a vast variety of ticketing systems run by each of the bus companies and on the trains, but they’re not cross-compatible. You can’t use your 10-ride train ticket on the bus, you can’t use your Go-Rider pass on Ritchies buses, you can’t use your Urban Express pass on any other bus company and so forth. It’s a mess. Integrated ticketing would mean that all ticketing options are accepted on all buses, trains and ferries; or perhaps in the shorter term – that there was a ticketing option other than cash accepted on all buses, trains and ferries.
- Introducing a ‘smart-card’. A smart-card, with the functionality of what is being proposed by the ‘Hop Card’, is separate to integrated ticketing, but will bring many benefits. The “contactless” nature of the system will mean faster boarding times, better information gathering for Auckland Transport (they will know exactly where all their passengers get on and off the bus, train or ferry) enabling smarter structuring of routes in the future (I hope) and finally, the smart-card will enable useful things like being able to check your card’s balance and recent trips online, being able to automatically top up in your card online and being able to block your card and be refunded your balance if you lose it.
These two parts of what’s generally just called “the integrated ticketing project” are actually quite separate, and neither of them necessarily requires the other. As Snapper have shown in Wellington, you can clearly have a smart-card that is not integrated (Snapper is not accepted on Wellington’s trains). But similarly, you can also have an integrated ticket that is not a ‘smart-card’.
In fact, Auckland already has a number of integrated ticketing options – even though we are yet to have a smart-card. There’s the Discovery Pass (both daily and monthly), which are accepted on all buses, trains and most ferries. The only problem with these passes is that they were priced deliberately high by the operators in the hope that when they ended up being barely used, their low-use would ‘prove’ that the public didn’t want integrated ticketing. Somewhat more useful that the Discovery Passes is the Northern Pass, which operates on the North Shore at the moment. The Northern Pass isn’t particularly well known I don’t think, but actually is an excellent example of what we’re looking for when it comes to integrating our ticketing/fares.
Here’s a description of how the Northern Pass works – from the MAXX website:
Northern Pass tickets make bus travel easy! The Northern Pass can be used for multiple rides, which is valid on all North Shore bus services as far as Albany in the North and Greenhithe in the West. Additionally, you can use it on buses to and from Auckland City, as well as on train services between Britomart and Glen Innes, Britomart and Ellerslie or Britomart and Kingsland.
With a Northern Pass, you only have to buy one ticket to make any number of trips around the North Shore – as well as to and from Auckland City – for as long as your ticket is valid. The Northern Pass is not a ticket for a specific journey. You pay once and keep the ticket to use again and again.
This means you can get on a bus in your neighbourhood, get off where you like and catch another bus or selected train service, as many times as you wish within your selected area and time frame. You don’t have to buy a new ticket when you board a different bus, even if the vehicle belongs to a different bus company.
Wow, we have free transfers, zone-based fares and time based ticketing. Not only that, but it doesn’t even matter which company runs your bus – plus it’s even valid on the train too (as far as Glen Innes and Ellerslie even!) This is the kind of ticket that I’ve been talking about forever that Auckland needs – and we already have one that’s been operating for quite a few years now.
The pass effectively creates two zones on the North Shore, and gives three pricing options: one for travel from the Upper Zone to the isthmus, one from the Lower Zone to the isthmus and one between the two zones. You can buy two-hour passes, daily passes, weekly passes and ‘after 9am’ passes – which means it even encourages off-peak travel (another thing that I think a ticketing system should do).
A map of the zones is shown below:
One issue I have with the Northern Pass is that its pricing effectively means that you will only use it if you’re three stages or more from the city. A fairly decent chunk of the North Shore (up to Birkenhead, Northcote & Takapuna shops) is within the two-stage boundary and the Northern Pass isn’t the most cost-effective option. But that could be solved by creating a third zone and turning the remainder of the lower zone into the ‘middle zone’.
However, tweaking with the way the Northern Pass works isn’t the point of this blog post at all. The point of this post is to ask the question: why not roll out something similar to the Northern Pass across the whole of Auckland? And the second question is, if the Northern Pass doesn’t require the installation of any special new equipment (and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t as it’s paper-based), then why can’t we roll out something similar very quickly – like tomorrow?
While I absolutely support the introduction of a smart-card, and I think the benefits it will bring are significant (particularly in terms of making boarding times faster), I think that joining together the introduction of this smart-card with something that’s actually entirely different, integrating the fare system, is unnecessary. Not only is doing the two things at once somewhat risky, in that you’re changing pretty much everything about how public transport fares and tickets work at the same time, doing the two things at once means that we unnecessarily delay a part of the project that could be done incredibly quickly – integrating the fares. By extending the system that has been developed with the Northern Pass to the rest of Auckland – offering time and zone based ticketing with unlimited free transfers – you could achieve a huge amount of benefit for the travelling public at almost zero cost.
Why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we integrating our fares tomorrow by rolling out the Northern Pass across the whole of Auckland? Why aren’t we introducing something that will have huge benefits for almost no cost?
Good questions – ones that Auckland Transport need to answer in my opinion.
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From my experience of working in local government the main obstacle is probably risk aversion. The current bus operators won’t like it and local government never seems to show the same backbone and tenacity towards achieving its objectives that the private (self centred) industry does. Which is a shame. The success of the PT system should be more important than the turf wars of individual bus companies.
I think you’re 100% right that the single reason ARTA/AT haven’t done this is because the bus companies won’t like it. I really think that Auckland Transport now needs to grow some guts and stop letting the bus companies win every argument. If the bus companies don’t like it, then they can hand back the tens of millions in public subsidies we give them every year.
Ooh, thanks for this post! I didn’t know about the Northern Pass, and particularly conveniently I need to get from Constellation to Kingsland on Friday.
One problem the trains won’t be running. I’d check to make sure that the Northern Pass covers the replacement bus services.
I’m 99% sure it would. Rail buses are effectively considered trains in terms of their ticketing.
Yes James you can use the Northern Pass on the Rail Bus. I used it to get to GI on the weekend, pity it can’t be brought on the train for people going the other way!!!
I was going to say that the answer lies in two words – bus operators – but you beat me to it. They’re taking the travelling public and the city transport management apparatus for a ride.
Hopefully we’ll see some traction with AT, but I’m not going to hold my breath in the absence of a government that dismisses the importance of functional public transport. Until that changes, the exercise of the PTMA powers will result in such bleating as to result in our Minister of Trucks finding a way to bugger things up all over again.
There are a lot of passes that are valid for different bus companies, sometimes with ferries included:
http://www.maxx.co.nz/info/pricing-passes/bus-fares.aspx
The problem is they are a good deal for heavy users only, even the daily and weekly ones. Great for commuting to work/school over multiple stages and my family uses them, but they are priced to recover losses from ultra-heavy users (often, two or more people share one pass if they travel at different times and I know of passes used for 10 rides a day, companies know it, make it even more expensive, it becomes attractive to a smaller group of heavy users…) so it’s a good deal for a minority only.
One thing I would like to see and what integrated ticketing would make possible is to stop selling tickets in buses and sell them in shops like dairies or vending machines. The driver just marks the ticket as used. A lot of countries do it. Handling cash slows things down and you cannot know how many passengers paying with a $20 note or 34 $0.10 coins you’ll get at what bus stop and this is responsible for a lot of delays, especially on routes popular with cash-paying tourists.
Just a quick one, the ARC brought out a plan called “Your Ticket to the Future” or similar in 1999, i.e. 10+ years ago, about how they were going to bring in integrated ticketing shortly. Talk about over promise and under-deliver.
Good post Josh – but then I would say that, aye? You have separated the issues nicely – integrated ticketing vs smart ticketing, which are totally independent issues (but they can of course, be combined).
The delays when the bus companies were ‘creating’ IT was because of what Scott says – they had no reason to share revenue among each other on an IT ticket, especially Stagecoach (which in buses is a near monopoly). Once ARTA took over, they seem to have become obsessed with using smart ticketing to achieve integrated ticketing.
Why? Because it solves one of the two key issues of IT – getting ‘honest’ trip data for ARTA to determine how to split that fare revenue. By honest I mean data you can trust, no matter which operator is collecting it (ie data that cannot be tweaked by an operator to benefit themselves).
The second (and more important) issue is determining what proportion of a passengers travel is on each operator’s vehicles. This is vital to give operators a fair share for passengers they carry, without just loading up the ticket cost to pay them all a chunk of cash ‘in case’ a passenger uses their service (which is what Discovery passes are).
All that is needed for this is for the ticket to either be:
1) unlimited zones or time ticket – like existing Northern or Discovery passes. Relies on operators recording when passenger gets on records no data on how far they travel on that service.
2) fare ticket – like existing cash fares and ten-trips, for a specific number of fare stages. This paper ticket needs modifying to have one ‘clip’ for each stage, up to a maximum number of stages anyone is likely to travel (say, 3 rows of 0-9 clips, giving 30 stages in total). Then the initial operator issues the ticket and clips the total stages bought, and clips the number of those total stages the passenger is using on their service. Passenger can keep using up stages until the last operator clips up to the total stages initially bought. Ten-trips are more complex though.
The best solution for the issue of how to divide up the fares for the operators is to have gross contracts like on the rail service or the NEX. That way AT pay a set price for a route but collect all fares regardless of how many people use it. That way the operator doesn’t miss out on anything and AT can set the fares to what ever level they want with as many free transfers as they want. Of course that was the purpose of the PTMA but the bus companies have fought that tooth and nail. They initially got SJ to agree to make changes but thankfully he has backed down now as someone has obviously pointed out that having some routes commercial and some subsidised means we end up paying more overall.
I believe as a concession to the bus companies they are going to award 12 year contracts which is about the life of a bus so the thinking is likely to be that at the start of each contract there will be a set level of vehicle quality but the bus companies know that by investing in new buses they will have a use for them for the life of the contract without the risk of them buying new buses only to lose the contract 2 years later.
Matt, while I don’t know about super long contracts, I definitely have been hearing rumours that the alternative to amending the PTMA (something known as the “Public Transport Operating Model” or PTOM) may actually be the worst of all worlds.
I’m definitely following up on it to find out more. LGOIMA here I come!
From Infratils monthly operational report:
It is hoped that examples of ihcreasing patronage (Auckland’s Mt Eden Road services and Wellington’s Airport Flyer have growth of approximately 20%) on mature services will find greater applicability under the new contracting regime which is being fostered by the Minister of Transport. The form of the contracts being collaboratively worked on by a mixture of industry repesentatives and central and local government agencies. The goals of greater transparency and better incentives are widely supported and it is hoped that the first of these new contracts will be in place in the first quarter of 2011.
NZ Bus is preparing to undertake a major fleet upgrade once it has the certainty of business continuity the contracts will afford.
http://www.infratil.com/media/Email/infratil_newsletter_december2010.htm
Looks like they will only buy new buses if the contracts are longer and they get better incentives
PS I meant to add that at one time subsequent to the 1999 plan I asked a middle manager in the PT area, either in the ARC or ARTA (set up mid-2000s), why they could not at least have gold coin cash fares to save boarding time, like Christchurch. I was told that Christchurch was sailing close to the wind in legal terms, that this might expose Auckland to a legal challenge so it was best not to risk it. So I think Scott M is right on the button. The history of all innovation shows repeatedly that you have to have engineers / managers / planners that have fire in their belly, who are results focused and not “process” focused, more willing to ask for forgiveness than permission. Consider Brunel, etc. The same goes for the politicians of course, unfortunately we have a history of rather isolated PT champions in this town who aren’t fully backed up politically by their council when push comes to shove. Hopefully it’s different this time.
Why not just go with the Toronto solution- one fare/pass for the entire city. No zones.
Simple.
http://www3.ttc.ca/Fares_and_passes/Prices/index.jsp
I guess because there’s such a variety in the length of trips you would see a huge price increase for short trips or else the system would go broke.
Quite right Matt, but that solution is too bold for the politicians and Auckland Transport bureaucrats. My understanding is that is the type of contract ARTA already had with Veolia for the rail – all fare revenue is collected by Veolia for ARTA, and ARTA pay for the service with some kind of factoring in of passenger numbers (to incentivise Veolia to get passenger numbers up).
If Auckland Transport are going to give bus companies a contract that guarantees a whole-of-life (12 year) return on their capital investment (cost of buses), that begs the question of – why not just have Auckland Transport buy the buses themselves? Just contract one of the bus companies to run our buses on our routes.
And if we’re doing that, why not have AT run the buses themselves (through a subsidiary), and get total transparency on ‘subsidies’ and return all the profits to ratepayers to improve the service further? No need for PTMA, PTOM or PMS…hehe
Josh, our communist friend BrisUrbane may have something there 😉 Flat fare of say $2 for 3 hours, for transaction ease and to stop short trips being too costly. Big cost savings on integrated ticketing (cos its all covered by the one $2 ticket) and faster clippies.
Most of all, it provides an indirect subsidy to poorer workers who almost always live in furthest suburbs from amenities/work & study zones. Also gives big bost to PT numbers, making them more viable, and freeing up motorways for the filthy rich (who can moan about the poor whizzing past in trains and buses while they still crawl in traffic. Hehehe
I think there’s a good argument for Auckland Council to start up a bus company. Maybe one of its other CCOs could operate it. I’m sure they would be more co-operative than the current operators, who are really a huge part of the problem when it comes to public transport in Auckland.
Regarding flat-fares, maybe one day it might be a reality when we eliminate all the long-haul bus routes and have them as feeder buses to the trains.
If the bus companies are opposed to these sorts of integrated tickets, the question still remains: why?
My guess is not because the current system is a barrier to two or more sectors in a journey (two different buses, or bus & train), but because it isn’t. So, that would make the bus companies’ reasoning run as follows: At the moment people are prepared to pay the extra to change operators in a two- or more sector journey. If there were widespread integrated ticketing, then the revenue from the ‘second sectors’ would be lost to the industry; and it would not be recovered from any new trips you might generate.
Not very intuitive? Well, this can be illustrated by looking at what companies charge for their own internal “integrated ticketing”. For example, an NZBus busabout daypass is $10, which only becomes a reasonable discount after about four journeys, depending on how you are using it, and you can only use it after 0900. I’ve worked with someone here (the UK) who was familiar with the joint ticketing system used in one big passenger transport area. His view was that these ticketing systems only generated extra trips if there was a significant discount on the current fare. So, who pays for that ‘significant discount’?
Looking at the NZBus cash fare structure makes me think that maybe the easiest fix would be to cajole the companies into offering fare structures in multiples of 50 cents. We did this years ago in Wellington rail; to much protest, but it made our clippies’ job a lot easier!
I’m sure at some point there was talk of putting the Northern Pass ticketing boxes in more locations accross the North Shore, like at Takapuna Highbury and Glenfield bus stops/stations, just like how those (how long to the next bus) signs have popped up everywhere. I prefer this to selling them at dairys.
Also the Northern Pass was only supposed to be a temporary measure until IT, thats why paper tickets were used. Who knew it would be so effective?
If NZBus is allergic to good public transport procedures, then so be it, let then die from shock if they don’t want to take up the new terms of contract. There are plenty of other companies that would step in to take there place. That’s the very definition of capitalism.
If Brisbane and Perth can gross contract their entire system, and if Melbourne can have a single integrated fare structure with various bus operators, then why can’t Auckland? What’s so un-special about Auckland that it can’t do what the Australians do, or even little old Christchurch for that matter?
If the local yokels can’t handle the jandal then we’ll simply get someone who can. If that means Ritchies gets the lions share or we have another foreign company then who really cares. The public transport system should be designed for the service to the public, to move people easily and efficiently. We shouldn’t design the system around the whims of the investment bankers that own Infratil.
Brisbane’s TransLink has a very large area- many times the area of London’s TFL. As I understand it, it is one of the largest PT authority areas in the world because it covers Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Ipswich.
TransLink does subcontract the bus services, each has their own “turf” area but are allowed to run buses along a common corridor
so that all operators can get to the CBD. TL also plans and changes the bus routes as required, so changes can occur when they are
needed, rather than having to wait for the contracts to expire.
It would be interesting to compare the area of Auckland vs Melbourne (which only has two zones) or Toronto (which has a single zone cover the entire city).
And no, different journey lengths hasn’t sent the TTC broke- their farebox recovery ratio is 66% or something close to that if I recall correctly.
I thought something that might work well would be a zone based system where each zone had local routes that connected to a rapid transit line. Only these rapid transit lines could cross zone boundaries. All local buses/QTNs within these sectors would feed to the rapid transit lines. The ticketing will then be as follows. Flat fee for time based intrazone travel, e.g. to/from a rapid transport hub. Interzone transport along the rapid transit line is then charged as a function of how far you travel.
I would make the zones relatively large, e.g. North Shore zone, Isthmus Zone, Waitakere Zone, East Auckland Zone, Manukau Zone. Of course this type of system would require much more rapid transit than currently exists, particularly on cross town routes. It would also require a huge shakeup in the present spaghetti route system. This would also stop duplication of service. Of course people would no doubt complaing initially that they have to transfer, but if you made the rapid transit system sufficiently fast then a lot of the time spent transferring would be made up again by the rapidity of the system.
It would be great if someone could do a post on how the current contracting system works. The thing that I don’t understand in particular is why ratepayers pay CFS (concessionary fare subsidies) for every child. This tops up the fare to be a percentage of the full adult fare (90% I think), even for school kids on commercially registered services. I mean, why is this payable for bus trips largely used by school kids like the 7:57 005?
I guess the argument is that school kids are displacing adults that would use the bus, but I really don’t think that this is the case.
Also with the northern pass there is a bit of fraud I think with students photocopying the tickets.
I would love to do such a post Cam but I struggle to understand how it works either.
On your child discount point, do movie theatres ask ratepayers to top up discounted child admission prices? Nope. So why should bus operators?
There already is an all-zone, all modes (albeit after 9am only) integrated ticket: the supergold card. The Government and Council pay for that. This is similar to Pharmac in the drugs area. Why can’t we have a ‘public transport buying agency’ who can negotiate fares in bulk on our behalf (this is what current subsidies on non-commercial routes already do)? As consumer we then just have to buy an Oyster card with capped limits per month or year. The need for on board cash handling and fumbling should be eliminated.
Apart from the Northern Pass and the Discovery Pass, my Fullers Waiheke pass allows me to travel on all NZ Bus and H&E Buses too. All those passes could be integrated immediately. We will not stand for any integration if Waiheke is left out. We are Aucklanders too forced to pay city rates (and subsidise your city lifestyle) so we must be treated equally to all other Aucklanders.
Ignoring the implicit “Yeah, so?” that springs to mind at the thought of y’all declaring yourselves the People’s Republic of Waiheke, I agree that Waiheke does need to be included. A large number of the residents commute to the mainland, and it’s not fair to keep them on the outer just because they live on the island. It would also be nice to be able to use a Hop card to pay for the ferry and bus tickets for a trip to Waiheke.